Probably the best explanation of why guns are an important part of America

[arochester]

1) "...America spent treasure and blood returning Europe to freedom in TWO world wars because they could not defend themselves sufficiently, despite their feelings of manhood.... "

Didn't the US join the Second World War in December 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour? The UK had declared War in September 1939 and had been fighting for 2 years by then.

The US did not "win the war" by themselves. They joined an alliance. There were soldiers from India and Africa who are often overlooked.

Did US guns and money win the Vietnam war?

2) The Second Amendment was adopted on 15th December 1791. The World has moved on a bit since then.

I am reminded of story "The Point!" by Harry Nilsson where it says "A point in every direction is the same as no point at all".

If everyone, every man, woman and child, in the US had 100 guns would any of them have any advantage over the others? Would life be any better or worse?

[tek_heretik]

True, but die-hard liberals would never put up with having them disarmed, even though amputations would solve the problem. Without arms, they can't possibly use guns.

Hey, you would be surprised what arm-putees can do with their feet! lol

Btw, why did you change your sig, it was funny. =(

[woodsmoke]

The real cut to the chase here is that since guns had always been around "before"....

And progressives have to be different from ..."before"....

Or they are not "progressive"....

Then whether or not guns are good or bad is moot....

The progressive has to be against guns because "the other side".....those people from "before".....who were not "progressive..." .....

that "old way of doing things..." were "for" guns....

So the progressive has to be, ipso posto facto and factotum.....has to be against guns...

even when completely disarming the United States....lock stock and gun barrel.....

would then allow any third rate country to storm the beaches.....

that does not matter....

The progressive HAS to be "against guns".....while knowing all the time that guns will not go away...

so....what is the point...the point...is to be against.... what came before...because they are...progressive...

Rage against the machine.....while drawing the daily dole....

I mean those Jean Paul Gaultier sunglasses are just SO cool when compared to dunno.... Reagan and ...no sunglasses....

I mean....WHO would NOT want to be associated with anything other than a revolutionist....who wore....Jean Paul Gaultier sunglasses.



woodneverworeJean Paul Gaultier sunglasses but does wear H sunglasses... lol smoke

[tek_heretik]

I don't own any guns and I don't even like them, I would rather shoot an animal with a camera, but I still don't like the idea of disarming the population. It puts too much power in the hands of the government and there is always the chance of an invasion.

[GreyGeek]

True, but die-hard liberals would never put up with having them disarmed, even though amputations would solve the problem. Without arms, they can't possibly use guns.

That, my dear Snowhog, is a decidedly "Islamic" solution. One cannot steal if they do not have hands.

[tek_heretik]

That, my dear Snowhog, is a decidedly "Islamic" solution. One cannot steal if they do not have hands.

Now that is funny, sad and true, all at the same time.

[Open Source]

Wow! This has been a crazy thread. I just wanted to clarify one key point. An AR-15 is NOT an automatic rifle. Automatic rilfes are difficult and expensive to (legally) come by in the US. It takes special licensing and a lot of money. An AR-15 is just as "automatic" as a Browning BAR .3006 hunting rifle. Just because you put a Ford Focus engine (.223 caliber) in a Ford Mustang body, doesn't make the Mustang faster than the Focus. However, the media doesn't understand this and seems to think that civilian owned assault rifles are so much more dangerous than say, a Savage .223 hunting rifle (same caliber). My point is simple; do not use the word automatic in your argument to justify the need to disarm the population. By the way, a Glock can be made (illegally) automatic fairly easily (see youTube for examples) and they make super high capacity mags for them.


On a side note, I don't think we should be comparing America with Europe either. Good or bad, most families in America have 2 or more cars. Depending on your location, affordable housing can be 3000 square feet in size or larger. The general population has cheap(er) gas and a great standard of living. This is not meant to put down Europe, but merely to say that we are comparing apples to oranges. I think there is simply a mindset difference between citizens of the USA and the UK (and other European countries). We have different cultures and some parts of those cultures will never change.

[sixonetonoffun]

The real topic should have been: "How did the young man who committed those heinous murders slip through the liberal education system without being helped?"
Might be our education system is poorly funded, poorly staffed and apparently failing on many levels.

Christmas day my 13 yr olds opened their Christmas gifts 2 Savage .308 rifles. You should have seen their faces beaming with enthusiasm. We have been shooting many times this summer and they have completed a Firearms Safety course. We have always had guns in our home living in a rural community they are just another tool. Shooting skunks, coons, possums, chucks is almost required to prevent the overpopulation and the spread of diseases like rabies. Around here we all have at least a .22 rifle close to hand for varmints.

On the other hand I do understand the horror of guns in the hands of those who are mentally ill or otherwise impaired. Some years ago a cousin of mine who was just a few years younger then myself died playing Russian Roulette presumably for drugs. But I don't blame the gun nor does his father. We all still miss him very much. Before the crack cocaine he was a responsible young man. So yes we and society let him down. But if it wasn't a gun it would have been a car or some other high risk behavior. No the gun wasn't legally obtained.

Shooting is a discipline as a sport, hunting, self defense or act of revolution. It is not for everyone. Taking away one gun type or limiting the number of cartridges it can hold isn't the answer. Better screening? Maybe but as was pointed out earlier one who is sober and sane today may be not so the next. If there were no more AR's, AK's, SKS's then how do we explain away the next Timothy McVeigh? Ban diesel fuel and nitrogen next? Everyone seems to believe this was just a random action by an upset youngster. That remains to be seen. More likely it was well planned and likely practiced more then once.

I doubt anyone will read my post and see the light. But I would hope they will at least consider one other thing and that is the huge number of jobs that would be effected by another wholesale ban on perceived assault rifles and there accessories. Many small machine shops are still in business today based on small runs of in house designed muzzle brakes ect... Do you really want to put yet another American out of work to make you feel like your doing something to protect us from ourselves?

[Open Source]

Christmas day my 13 yr olds opened their Christmas gifts 2 Savage .308 rifles. You should have seen their faces beaming with enthusiasm.

My wife just bought me a Savage FCP-K LE 308 for Christmas too! My face was beaming!

[Qqmike]

Pretty much agree with sixonetonoffun in post #68. There are issues re gun ownership; there are issues re society's handling/support of drugs, mental illness, school behavior, education and even crime.

And--in the USA--there's issues re self defense against criminal activity.

A Karate expert is attacked on the street. She grabs a broom propped up nearby against the brick wall of the alley. She beats the hell out of her assailants (or kills them) using her skills and the broom handle. Are we to outlaw her Karate instructor? or outlaw the broom and prosecute its manufacturer?

Fifteen years ago, a buddy of mine, a Southwest maker of Indian jewelry, came home for lunch to find an armed thief in his living room helping himself to a dozen rare/expensive Indian artifacts and turquoise jewelry. My friend--who always packs (as we all do in the business)--shot him to death, made a bloody mess in his den, and then had to pay a lawyer to get him off on justifiable.

A friend lives in a cheap apartment, that's all he can afford, $400/month. It's in the war zone but there are plenty of good, hardworking people there struggling to make it on their $8-$10-an-hour service jobs. But, it is in an area known for it criminal-gang-drug activity. Night before Christmas eve the other day, someone knocks on his apartment door at 10 pm. Afraid, he didn't answer it. He wakes up the next morning to find three of his tires slashed. Did they mistake him for someone else, a previous tenant maybe? I asked him if he owned a gun; he said he didn't.

You live in the American desert Southwest, and you're in a business or hobby that involves carrying rare/expensive product to sell or to show. You prepare to make a road trip in your vehicle. It may be a 50-mile trip, it may be much longer, even days. You pack your cell phone, make sure your AAA (or auto club) membership is up to date and with current phone numbers, some basic survival stuff like extra water, flash light, and such, and what else ... ? In my opinion, if you don't carry a gun, you're nuts--even nuttier than the bad guys who are smart enough to carry weapons. What will you do if your car breaks down or you are otherwise stranded out in the middle of some desolate nowhere? Chances are very high that a good guy--a cop or a friendly rancher or good Samaritan--would help you. BUT, what's the chance that a bad guy, a very bad guy, might spot you first? Is is 1%? is it 15%? Who the hell knows. Are you going to take that chance? Is your wife coming with you? Your kids? What's your personal utility function preference for risk versus moral options? I always take a gun. And you are--again--nuts if it is not loaded and if you do not conceal it.

Even worse, a hater of elitist liberal progressives might spot you driving a 'progressive car' (e.g., Honda, Toyota, or even worse a Scion or a Smart car!). Hell, he might be armed and on the impotent warpath for venting and revenge and destruction!

Point being, in the USA, there's no shortage of risks from crazies.

And please don't tritely, naively, give the advice to call the police and rely on that phone call as your only self-defense action. They may arrive way too late.

The gun is not the problem in America.

[GreyGeek]

I don't own any guns and I don't even like them, I would rather shoot an animal with a camera, but I still don't like the idea of disarming the population. It puts too much power in the hands of the government and there is always the chance of an invasion.

I used to be an avid hunter, at one time during the Arab oil embargo using my weapons to put Deer, Pheasent and Squirrel on the table when the price of propane stated taking 86% of my monthly income from teaching. However, I stopped considering the use of firearms to hunt as being a "sport" because I wasn't "hunting" or "stalking" the animals. It was merely a long range ambush. Sniping, if you will. The price of beef per pound was cheaper when all the costs were added in. I switched to using bows to increase the sporting aspect and to increase the difficulty. On my first (and last) bow hunt for deer I was high in a tree, wearing camo, and waiting for a deer to walk by down below. One did. It came to the base of my tree but I was so fascinated by being so close. I could see it more clearly than any other animal I had ever shot. It looked up at me and we made eye contact. I looked into its eyes as it looked me over. It could hear me breathing, and probably hear my heart beating. I watched it for, perhaps, 3 or 4 minutes before it casually walked away, grazing here and there.

I never shot another animal after that, and probably never will again, except for food or self-defense. I replaced that bow with a 35mm camera with a 500mm telephoto lens. I flew a couple bow hunting friends of mine to Valentine, NE to hunt Pronghorn antelope. I truly stalked to within 75 feet of a heard of about 15 of them, and a couple of Elk who were grazing near them. I was wearing a white sheet on which my wife had tie-died light tan with light green spots. The camera lens was protruding through a hole in the sheet, which covered me like I was casper the ghost. My only vision was through the lens. I moved very very slowly. It probably took over an hour to move from the cover I had, which was about 100 yds away, to within 75 feet. Magnificent animals. One of my friends, whom I took with me, was a full blooded Indian. He was using a home made 70lb pull straight bow, like his ancestors used. I've mentioned him before and the magnificent stalk he made on that hunt. In his culture animals were not killed for sport and they took killing one very seriously. I understand that now. I also understand that weapons are a good solution for pests, varmints sick or rabid animals, and the best way to cull over populations of wild animals. But just shooting them for shootings sake? I can't do that any more.

[GreyGeek]

.... I just wanted to clarify one key point. An AR-15 is NOT an automatic rifle. .....

As it is sold to civilians it is not an "assault" rifle either. Assault rifles are those capable of firing many rounds with the single pull of the trigger, i.e., the definition of "automatic" weapons. Anti-2A folks usually get that mixed up, just like Dianna Feinstein, who said she was trained for ccw and carried a pistol, but has repeatedly displayed civilian AR-15s or AK-47s with her finger on the trigger and sweeping the crowd with the muzzle. For revolvers the "double" in double-action means the trigger performs two functions: cocking, and then firing the gun. The hammer cannot be manually cocked back; only the pull of the trigger can cause that to happen. Single action weapons have to have the hammer manually cocked. Pulling the trigger won't do that. That's why the old movies showing western gun fighters using "Peace Makers" usually had them "fanning" the weapon, using the palm of one hand to "fan" the hammer, which also revolved the chamber, while keeping the trigger pulled. It made for much more rapid firing, but not nearly as fast nor as accurate as a semi-auto pistol.

A double action revolver can be very fast in the hands of a skilled user:

[Snowhog]

The gun is not the problem in America.

If only the liberals (the lemming variety) understood this. Well said Q.

[cavedweller]

I own several guns. I hunt, target shoot. I also own quite a bit of fishing tackle and several rods and reals. I live in a pretty rural location. I also have two Harleys and my wife has a 3/4ton GMC pick up. No kids in the house.

Someone takes a gun out and does something like what happened because of a mental defect or because something happened in their lives that has never been dealt with you have a tradgedy. Was it the guns fault? No! The damage could have just as easily been carried out with a vehicle, a baseball bat, a crossbow or a knife. The fault lies with the individuals who knew this young man had a problem and chose to overlook it, or disreguard it because they didn't want to get involved. A certain ammount of the blame lies with the media who blast the kind of thing endlessly over the airwaves giving the unstable their 15 minutes of fame, and in a sense glorrifying them. To be honest a very large part of the blame lies on the gaming industry and the parents that feed and allow children to sit for hours on end playing violent games on their computers or televisions. Scewing the line for them between right and wrong.

I'll be straight up honest with you. someone comes in my home and theatens me or my wife that will be the last mistake they make. If I catch them in my home or shop trying to steal my stuff they will be held at gunpoint until the police arrive to haul them off.

Everybody can make an argument about the good and bad of alot of things. It always boils down to the good and the bad of the one using or doing the thing.

[Snowhog]

I go one-step further. I own several guns: three rifles and two hand guns. I live alone. When I'm home, my .45 automatic (loaded) is within immediate reach. Should anyone attempt forceful entry into my home, they die. Period. Simple. I have the absolute right to be safe in my own home.